As some may remember, I posted repeatedly here that Obama's early success, even among whites in some states, was blinding the media to racial politics. It was nice in way -- a kind of colorblind approach that we can all laud -- but I felt too many were wearing rose-colored glasses, suggesting that his race was a minor factor. Now we have exit polls in Ohio showing a a good number of white voters cited "race" as a factor in their vote. And Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo today felt moved to elevate a long take on this from his comments section, exploring how Obama has done okay with whites only in certain states. It closes with this:"Almost no one has stopped to ask whether Clinton's consistent lead amongst white working class Democrats might have something to do with race. I'm almost certain it played a role in her margins of victory in states like Ohio, Tennessee, and Oklahoma.
"I'm also not sure what this means if true, either for the rest of the primary or the general. I guess the question for the primary is whether latent racism exists amongst Pennsylvania's white Democrats to the same degree that it does in Ohio. And for the general, if Obama wins, I'd say the question is whether racial suspicions in swing states like Ohio are so strong that a significant portion of white working class Democrat-leaners would ignore their economic concerns to vote against him, or whether it's a more subtle thing that just nudged them into a preference for Clinton in the primary, but will be trounced by devotion to economic progress in November."
2 comments:
Both your post and Marshall's appear to see this as a one-way street. Neither of you considers that the Obama camp has contributed to the racial dynamic.
What's been obvious (at least since South Carolina) is that whatever the Obama's campaign's official color-blind policy its practice has been to discreetly encourage its followers to invoke racism whenever it seemed opportune.
Unahppily, a tactic like that eventually catches up with the tactician, and now the Obama camp is in the awkward position of watching its supporters--in the blog universe especially--cry racism at anything and everything. Racism caused the loss in Ohio; racism determined the Obama imitator on SNL; racism led Clinton to photo-shop an Obama image; racism is behind the press's sudden new aggressiveness.
Most damagingly, the tactic has accomplished the opposite of its intention: instead of stigmatizing critics of Obama as racist, it has--in the real world as opposed to the blog world--started to harden Obama's identity as the black candidate.
(To give you an idea of how far this has penetrated, Saul Friedman did a pretty mild piece, at Nieman Watchdog, asking why every major [and most minor] black columnists were supporting Obama. The comment reaction was fierce, with not a single poster even considering what Friedman had written. Nothing but--Friedman is lazy, Friedman is stupid, Friedman is old, Friedman is racist.)
Posts like Marshall's (and your echo of it) and the resulting hysteria at TPM, Kos and HuffPo only re-inforce the sense that, when challenged, Obama and his supporters will cry 'racism' whenever things don't go their way.
That might intimidate white upper-middle-class Democrats, but it will have little effect on white working-class Democrats.
And if the Obama team and its followers believe the GOP will be intimidated by accusations of "racism!" they will learn that the party of Lee Atwater, the party of the Southern Strategy, the party of George (Macaca) Allen, will treat Obama the same way it has treated every black politican who isn't a domesticated and obedient Republican. Viciously.
And if you believe that strategy is not effective, check with Harold Ford.
For most primary voters supporting Obama represents a deep subconscious, absolution.
Blacks, scoffed that he would be marginalized in the face of the stellar field of Democratic candidates.
As we know a large percentage of Black voters have been irrationally tied to the Clintons.
A tie that, to this day, staggers the inquiring mind, since there was not one significant piece of legislation, new program, or budget allocation that clearly supported Black interests during the eight years of the Clinton Administration. Playing saxophone blues does not qualify.
After he won in a few predominately white states, black voters where "moved" to reconsider.
Their vote, now, they believed would absolve them of their earlier apostasy. Will this guilt survive, and manifest itself on Nov.,7? Or, will blacks just stay home figuring they already voted?
Many white folks voted for Obama in the primaries for similar reasons. Knowing in their heart-of-hearts, that they could not vote for a Black man in the General Election, chose the primary vote as their chariot of deliverance.
It's easy to tell a pollster you'd vote for a black man or a white woman. You may not want the pollster to tag you as a racist before the world.
Instead, whites will, as history reveals, talk the talk and then walk away from the talk. As you state, "Look what happened to Harold Ford."
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